Monte Carlo simulation of electron scattering and secondary electron emission in individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes: A discrete-energy-loss approach Available to Purchase

Electron scattering in and secondary electron emission from multiwalled carbon nanotubes are investigated using Monte Carlo simulation. The method treats energy loss in a discrete manner, resulting from individual scattering events, rather than within a continuous-slowing-down approximation. Simulation results agree fairly well with the reported experimental data. The effect of number of nanotube walls is investigated and the energy distribution of the transmitted electrons is calculated. It is found that secondary electron yield in the low-primary-energy range is more sensitive to the number of walls and is maximized for a particular number of walls. The effect is not significant in the higher-primary-energy range. The effect of core electron ionization on secondary electron emission from nanotubes is found to be negligible because of the low scattering cross-section involved. The presented framework can also be applied to other small structures such as nanowires.